The ASRock X870 Steel Legend is a solid choice for what it offers and its price. After purchasing and testing it I would argue it is the perfect choice, not too little, not too much. It has a lot of good features, but it is missing some more premium ones. Just to name a few it has an AM5 socket, DDR5 RAM, and many USB ports on rear I/O panel. The form factor is ATX. So, it does skip a few high end extras, but but it is a very balanced board for people not wanting to spend an arm and a leg.
Now I will dive more into the specs of the motherboard, it has pretty good storage, memory and expansions. Great AM5 memory with 128GB, 4 ram slots, and a max speed of up to 8000MHz overclocked. Also decent storage, 4x SATA III and 3 M.2 slots. For expansions, the motherboard has 1 PCIe 5.0 x16, 1 PCIe 4.0 x16, and 2 PCIe 4.0 x1’s. All these specs show that it is a solid choice for the price.
When you look at the I/O panel, and see all the storage and expansion slots I would say this is a pretty feature rich motherboard. On the I/O panel, we have 2 USB Type-C ports, 5 USB 3.2 ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, S/PDIF port, Wi-Fi connecters, audio jacks, and a BIOS-flash button. That was a mouthful, but that goes to show how feature packed this motherboard can be, it doesn’t have everything in the world but it has what it needs, and more. And, with the Realtek ALC1220 7.1 HD audio, good sound won’t be an issue. Overall, the ASRock X870 Steel Legend has a mix of modern features and performance that match its price point, making it a very solid choice.
References
https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X870%20Steel%20Legend%20WiFi/index.asp
https://www.techradar.com/search?searchTerm=steel+legend+x870
Note: This review is part of a classroom project.